


Trussed in Trust

by Ramabear (RyMagnatar)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Animal Death, Camping, Dubious Consent, Eridan is dumb, Light Bondage, M/M, Venom/Poisoning, a variation on Fuck or Die, drugged state of mind, essentially PWP, snake bites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:25:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyMagnatar/pseuds/Ramabear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As part of a human-troll bonding experience, Dave and two friends volunteered for a camping trip that pairs them off with a troll to hike, camp and make nice with. Eridan gets bitten by a snake, figures he's immune to it because he's immune to many poisons on Alternia, and doesn't realize he's mistaken until there's only two choices left to him: violence or deviance. Fortunately for him, Dave is willing to lend a hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trussed in Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Based in part from an old RP I had. Dedicated to that partner of mine.

_This is hell,_ Eridan thought as he rubbed the bite marks on his arm, dirt scuffed on his knees and elbows, blood on his hands from the snake that writhed, headless, on the ground beside him. _I am on Earth and Earth is hell._

He stared at the snake, watching it turn onto its belly and then onto its back and then its belly again before it coiled up and twitched for the last time. The head was a mangled, bloody mess in his fist, the fangs useless now, the venom of it dripping along with the blood. It had drained itself of most of its venom with the first bite so the second one from where he had reached for it, pin pricks on the heel of his hand, just burned with the feeling of shallow wounds.

Eridan dropped the head onto the ground and stood up, slowly. He felt a brief swirling of his vision but everything steadied out after a moment. He looked up ahead on the trail, catching sight of blond hair and a green backpack. His human hiking partner had stopped and turned to look back.

Eridan stopped rubbing his arm.

The bites had stopped burning too. Which meant, he knew from experience, that the poison had grown sluggish in his veins and didn’t break at his blood or muscles the way it probably would a human. He glared down at the snake’s corpse and smiled at it.

Dave, the human, pulled an earbud from his ear and lifted an eyebrow over his glasses. “You fall down, princess?”

Eridan glared back at him and pushed himself up off his knees. He pulled his lip back in a wordless snarl before turning his head away. He took a deep breath, found a piece of calm in the back of his mind _-even a hellish Earth forest had some beauty-_ and turned to look back at Dave without a growl in the back of his throat. “Shut up.” He took a step, stomping on the snake’s already mashed head with the heel of his boot for good measure, and walked up to where Dave waited. “What are you waiting for?”

Dave was looking at his hands. Eridan glanced down and saw the blood still on them. He wiped them off on his pants and snapped, “Come on.”

“What the fuck,” Dave said as he started following. “I know you didn’t scratch yourself because that’s not fucking violet there, buddy.”

“I tripped,” Eridan said quickly, biting each word off in annoyance. “I fell and caught myself and startled a snake. It struck at me and I killed it for daring to try and hurt me.” He absently ran his fingers over the heel of his hand. The punctures there were shallow, hardly noticeable now and only hurt when he pressed them. The same was for his arm, where the shirt he wore was too dark to show the holes in the cloth.

“You can’t just kill everything that pisses you off,” Dave began saying, his voice an endless murmur at the edge of Eridan’s attention. He kept speaking but Eridan kept ignoring him and eventually Dave went quiet again.

When he glanced over his shoulder, Dave’s expression was blank and he wore earbuds once more. Eridan rolled his eyes at him. Of course the city human would be the one to smuggle electronics with him on this trip instead of following the damn rules of the outing.

Turning his back on Dave, he followed the trail, his nose picking up the scent of trolls and humans on the path before him. He didn’t notice the sweat gathering at his temples or the way his hands would tremble when he reached out to steady himself until it was too late.

* * *

Dave wedged himself between John and Jade on the ground by the fire. Tents had been set up in the clearing and the sun had officially set, leaving them in the cooling twilight hours. Dave sat with one knee up to his chest, the other leg stretched out in front of himself, eating from the metal bowl slowly because the thick chilli in it was still hot as hell. Jade and John were talking animatedly on either side of him, pausing to give him a grin when he quipped up a response, but mostly carrying on without him. It was just the two of them that Dave knew on this trip. The other humans around were friendly, but also strangers, and Dave had really had enough of strangers for one day. He didn’t know any of the trolls beyond their names yet at all.

He was staring past the fire, not really watching anything, when he saw a familiar stranger, the most familiar of them all at this point, walking towards their shared tent with a hunch to his shoulders that looked almost painful. He was across the camp, almost a shadow of black and purple against the treeline and the evening light. Dave watched him disappear into the tent when a thought crossed his mind.

“I got a question,” Dave said suddenly, cutting off John in the middle of his words.

“Yeah?” Jade asked.

“What was the weirdest troll shit that you dealt with today? Like, weirdest fucking thing your troll partner did?”

John and Jade considered this thoughtfully for a moment before John laughed. “My partner told me about the paint she uses in her wall art back home. Apparently it’s all based from troll blood, so every color she uses, red to purple, is sourced from other trolls. She said she once got some human blood, but it made terrible ink. Dried out too quickly and lost its color or something.”

“That’s better than mine,” Jade said with a roll of her eyes, “I swear if I have to hear another word for word rendition of his favorite troll romantic comedy while he gives me those doe eyes I am going to have to put him out of his misery and tell him I gave my heart away to angsty action films and he’ll never woo me with a romcom plot line _even if_ there is a midair car to helicopter collision.”

“Mine killed a snake.” Dave said, as deadpan as he knew how. “Tripped. Fell over. Caught himself. Saw the snake try to strike him and fucking killed it.” He held up his hand and made a fist. “I saw its blood on his hands.”

“Jesus.” John whispered.

Jade turned to look where Dave was looking, at the tent where his partner had gone into. “Why did he do that?”

“It dared to think it could hurt him.” Dave shrugged a shoulder. “And then it was dead.”

He ate another mouthful of his food in silence. It clung to them for a minute or two more before John, ever hateful of the silence of awkward conversations, cracked a joke that made Jade snort her water almost out her nose and struggle to hit John around Dave’s back.

* * *

The division of desires was incredibly clear to Eridan.

He lay on his side on the inside tarp of the tent. He hadn’t gotten out his sleeping bag. He didn’t think he’d really be sleeping that night and he didn’t want to shred it in his claws. Or stain it in purple.

One hand he kept twisted in his hair, tugging occasionally when his thoughts pinwheeled into distressing paths. He needed clarity, to think, to decide, so he needed pain to cut through everything else.

The other hand clutched at the front of his shirt, claws dug in deep, knuckles grey-white. He needed air to breathe, to relax, but he was confined in this tent, in his clothes, to keep from running mad.

Because that was one of the desires. To draw knives and slit throats and bathe in the blood, glory in it, and not stop until he was either dead himself or dropped from exhaustion.

The other desire involved a lot less killing and a lot more mindless fucking.

Both of them made him shudder away from himself, seeking the tranquility between two raging desires, the peace of uncertainty. Would he tip towards violence? Would he tip towards deviance?

The slow zipper sound of the tent door made Eridan shudder from his head to his toes. He curled up tighter, breath coming shallower.

“Oh.” The scent of human filled the tent. It made Eridan’s mouth water. This was prey. This was warmth. There was a second sound of a zipper and then they were enclosed together. Alone. “You’re awake?”

Eridan grunted in response. He didn’t smell sharp, sweaty fear. Only woodsmoke and charcoal, embers and that distant sour smell of beer. He took in a deeper breath and let it out slowly. No. Not drunk. He couldn’t smell it seeping from Dave’s skin. Only from his mouth.

Eridan groaned and turned tighter into himself.

“Are you… shit, dude, are you okay?”

He jumped when he felt the hand- warm and hot and burning and so _needed_ \- touch his shoulder and give a tiny squeeze before withdrawing.

Eridan’s mind teetered.

He turned, slowly, lifting his head from under his arm. “I need help,” he whispered. His mouth was dry. Dave brought light in with him, the sullen, unhappy glow of a dying flashlight. It cast them both in a muted silvery light. Dave’s glasses reflected the light and Eridan didn’t even have the capacity to hiss at his stupid stubbornness about them. “I’m fucked up.”

“Yeah. You really are.” Dave was crouched beside him, on his own sleeping bag that had been rolled out hours before. Eridan stared absently at it. He hadn’t remembered seeing it there when he lay down on the tarp. “You sick or something? You eat something bad? You look like you’re going to throw up.”

Eridan laughed but from the way Dave recoiled from the sound, Eridan knew there was something wrong with it. “Is that what I look like? That’s what I feel like. I can’t… I can’t let myself fall and it feels like I’m spinning with vertigo.” He started to laugh again but twisted his hand in his hair and bit off the sound with his teeth.

Dave was silent, breathing, watching, beside him. Eridan felt the almost touch of his skin, the warmth of his hand hovering over Eridan’s own hand. “Why are you… Are you hurting yourself with this?” His fingertips skittered over the edge of Eridan’s hand buried in his hair, dancing like fire across Eridan’s skin.

Without even thinking about it, his hand twisted out of his hair and gripped Dave by the wrist. It was warm in his grip. Eridan could feel the human’s pulse jump. He could smell the sudden spike of fear-scent in the tent and lifted his head.

Eridan’s mind swung closer to the other side, now.

Dave had pushed his glasses up. Eridan stared into his eyes. His fingers tightened on Dave’s wrist without recognition until he realized that his arm was shaking, his shoulder moving, Dave was holding his arm in turn and shaking _him_ now. And speaking. Dave was speaking.

“-fucking _hurts_ , just fucking let go already.”

Eridan’s fingers lifted. He pulled his hand away quickly as he felt the need to dig claws into that skin. “I have to leave,” he whispered. “If I stay here you will get hurt.” He glanced to Dave’s eyes again but didn’t get trapped in them a second time, “You might die.”

That stilled the human. Dave looked at him, hand on his own wrist, and blinked. “What the hell happened to you?”

The tranquility was seeping away. Eridan could feel the edges of his vision turn to darkness. “The snake bit me. I thought it would do nothing. I am immune to many poisons. I forgot that this is Earth. Different world. Different biology. It… the venom.” He shook with the effort to keep his mind clear and squeezed his eyes shut. He struggled to breathe but Dave didn’t interrupt him. “The venom’s flooded my veins. My body reacted to it. With hormones. I need to… Either I must kill or I must fuck. I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t. It’s not safe.”

“Fuck or kill,” Dave breathed the words out softly. “Are you fucking kidding me? What is this like some kind of-” He stopped himself and Eridan had to look, had to see what his face was showing. Dave pressed a hand over his mouth, staring at Eridan hard. When he lowered it he whispered, “If we could keep your hands from clawing me, your teeth from biting me, I could help. I mean. If what you need is to fuck or get fucked. I’d rather that then you get out of the tent, come across some bullshit asshole before you could leave the clearing and end up mass murdering everyone. My _friends_ are out there.”

“You would just…” Eridan stopped. His head was pounding to the beat of his own heart. “We are not in a quadrant. I don’t even remember your last name.”

A smirk like quicksilver flashed over Dave’s lips. “Hey. I’m Dave Strider, fucker of trolls. And humans don’t use quadrants anyway. It’s a get done or get killed situation, Eridan, and I’m down for a good time.”

Eridan shuddered when his name fell from Dave’s lips. His mind wobbled back and he swallowed the saliva that filled his mouth from his lust. “Rope. I have rope. In my bag. I’ll tie my hands.”

Dave was quick, he saw, digging through his bag and pulling out the slick rope he brought with him when going out into the wild. Eridan wound it around his waist and tied the skillful knots he’d learned sailing the ocean so many years ago. “You have to help. I need your hands.” Eridan whispered the instructions on how to tie the knots around his wrists, binding his hands close to his waist, where they could lean back and support himself, but not reach up and grab anything. He shuddered as the last knot was made and tugged at them.

The rope, had it been human made, he could have snapped easily. This was troll rope, strong enough, when wound a few times like he had done it, to resist him in everything but a true Highblood Rage. Eridan swallowed.

A touch like fire on his cheek made him look up from his waist. “Are you… You really okay with this?”

“I would rather not murder everyone,” Eridan whispered back. “I would rather have a quadrant mate to do this with. I don’t have one. Are you okay with this?”

“You’re attractive,” Dave said the words and Eridan still blinked to make sure he had heard them right, “And I wish that you weren’t forced to do this but were choosing to because I’m just that amazing and you can’t resist me. And I’d do anything I could to keep my friends safe. So. Not exactly okay, but that’s what we’ve got for ourselves right now.” He leaned in slightly, “Maybe in the future…”

Eridan shivered and leaned towards Dave without thought. “You have to gag me. I will bite you otherwise. I don’t know what I would do if I were to taste your blood in my mouth.”

Dave nodded, finding some cloth and winding it tight for Eridan’s mouth. “How will I know when to stop? What if I hurt you?”

The laugh that bubbled up from him hurt even Eridan’s ears. “You can’t hurt me any worse than I can hurt myself. And don’t stop until I stop moving. Not like, dead or asleep but like, fuck. You know what I mean.”

Again, Dave nodded and, eyes on Eridan’s face, he put the gag in his mouth. Digging his teeth into the cloth, Eridan closed his eyes and let out a deeply held breath. His mind swung out of tranquility and fell off into the ocean of lust below.

* * *

Dave rubbed his hands on his pants to get the sweat off his palms. He didn’t shake, but even if he had he didn’t think Eridan would notice. The troll was shaking himself, twisting in place where he sat on the floor of the tent. Dave realized they’d forgotten to take Eridan’s shirt off of him before tying his arms after he already began to pull it up and over.

“Fuck,” He whispered and rooted around on his side of the tent. “I hope that’s not one of your favorite shirts, buddy.” He found his knife, lay his flashlight down so it didn’t cast them in shadow but still gave him light to, well, fuck by, and crawled back over to Eridan.

Eridan who looked at him with eyes so wide and pupils so blown that he could hardly see the violet of his irises. “Christ,” Dave breathed as he cut the cloth of Eridan’s shirt free and closed up the pocket knife. “You are totally gone right now.”

A faint growl was the response he got. That and a restless movement of Eridan’s hips. Dave licked his lips and went to work on the troll’s pants next. They weren’t as tight on his body as Dave had thought they were, but Eridan was sweating already and he still had to peel the cloth back. The boxers Eridan wore were _moving_ in the front, and damp already. Dave swallowed and worked them down as well. He could feel Eridan quivering beneath his touch and it made his mouth dry to watch.

His own clothes came off much faster than Eridan’s and were tossed aside with even less care. He had a bound and gagged seatroll in his tent that he was supposed to fuck into submission. Dave’s cool facade burned away under the heat of his own lust and he fell upon Eridan with curious hands and exploring lips.

Scars twisted along Eridan’s skin like the multitude of tattoos he bore. They were twisting, lighter grey than his skin, and spoke of fights that he must have had so long ago. Dave followed the patterns of them as they bled into each other, his breath caught in his throat as every little touch made Eridan whimper and thrash his head. He licked over the sensitive places he found, along Eridan’s ribs, at the corner of his gills- Gills!- and up his stomach where his navel should have been.

Dave moved downwards, panting harshly by the time he reached Eridan’s groin and the bulge waiting there. Eridan had fallen back, holding himself up by his elbows with his head rolled back on his head and every sound from his throat coming out muffled from the cloth in his mouth.

Tentatively, he licked up the underside of the bulge, tasting it and feeling the temperature, the slickness of it. It was cold, colder than Eridan’s body, but more alive. He wrapped his hand around it, trying desperately not to think about how it was wrapping itself around him at the same time, and went to work.

He had given blow jobs before, but only to humans. He had seen troll bulges before, but only in porn. Having one twisting inside his mouth was a completely different experience. He giggled as he thought it was a lot like a snake in his mouth. Of course it would be a snake. That’s what had gotten them in this mess in the first place.

Dave held Eridan’s legs down with the weight of his own body, but that hardly stopped the troll from thrusting up against him. He used one hand on that scarred, inked abdomen to hold Eridan back but that didn’t stop him from trying anyway. He worked as much of the bulge as he could into his mouth, the rest of it squeezing and rubbing and twisting until-

The shivering started and didn’t stop, only got more pronounced. Dave lifted his eyes, briefly, to look up, to see if there was a reason for that he could read in Eridan’s face. He met Eridan’s eyes, still glazed and blown wide with lust, and suddenly understood what the shivering was leading to.

Eridan came with claws digging into the tarp and teeth digging into his gag. Dave swallowed the first mouthful but had to draw back. He waited for the flood of fluid, he expected it, really, from all the porn and all the stories, but it never came. Still, Eridan did give more than a human and Dave felt it against his throat and chest, dripping from his chin and saw it on Eridan’s spread thighs.

He licked his lips. He grinned up at Eridan. “I wish I could kiss you now, to show you how you taste,” he said the words mostly for himself.  He didn’t think Eridan could understand him right now. “But I’m pretty sure you’d bite my tongue off if I got too close.”

In response, Eridan simply opened his legs wide, bent his knees to give Dave better access, and leaned back farther. The implication was clear. His bulge was tired and his nook was not.

Giving his mouth a rest for a while, Dave crowded close with his body, using his fingers to work Eridan’s nook. He put his other hand on the back of Eridan’s neck, turning his head to look at him. The expression he wore was fixated on Dave, and no matter which way Dave turned his head, Eridan’s eyes followed him. He muttered a bit under his breath, curses and prayers to gods he didn’t believe in to always remember this moment when he had the undivided attention of someone as wild and strange and strong as Eridan. He couldn’t help the thready kisses he left at Eridan’s throat, tasting his skin, feeling his pulse beating urgently, as his fingers plunged in deeper.

Gathering purple from thighs and chest and from Eridan’s nook, Dave lubricated his own cock. It practically bounced in his own hand, as eager as he was and more needy since he’d paid so little attention to it already. Eridan shifted his legs when Dave touched them, moved them, and gave a wriggle to his hips that Dave thought completely unfair of him.

But then he was pressing into the nook, just tight enough and still chilly even from Dave’s fingers. He groaned softly, biting his lip to keep it that way, as he pushed in. Eridan, on the other hand, acted as though Dave had strung a live copper wire up his spine. The eyes rolled back in his head and he shook so badly that Dave had to pull him tighter to keep from slipping out. “God,” Dave whispered as he lifted Eridan’s legs around his waist, “hold onto me, Eridan. It’s all uphill from here.” He didn’t know what he was saying even as more words dropped from his mouth, but Eridan’s eyes rolled back and he was staring down at Dave now and he thrust his hips down and Dave grinned.

Bending himself to the pleasurable task, Dave began to thrust. His fingers slipped from Eridan’s thighs at times, digging in when they could, but he never slowed down. His ragged breath took all the words from his throat. Eridan’s writhing and whimpering took all the thoughts from his brain.

Just like the bulge had twisted around Dave’s hand, Eridan thrust back against him. Dave lost his grip and braced himself on the tarp floor of the tent. Eridan’s legs locked around his waist and he barely had enough room to pull back for his thrusts. Even half lying on the floor, hands bound and mad with the lust that filled his eyes with a sheen of gloss, Eridan had the strength and the co-ordination to bring his body away and then back down on Dave’s cock.

Dave bit Eridan’s shoulder to stifle the groans he wanted to give. He remembered, somewhere in the back of his hazy thoughts, that they weren’t alone, not really. The tent walls were as thin as the shirt he had worn that morning and only fifteen feet away another pair of hikers from their group were either asleep or getting there themselves. Dave was grateful he had stayed out talking as late as he had with his friends. Most of the others had long since left. He had thought Eridan had gone to sleep.

How long had he been in the tent, curled up on himself in pain, unable to bring himself to do anything but lay there?

Dave groaned again, rocking against Eridan. He grunted into his ear, panting out half-remembered words as he fought to fuck the poison out of Eridan. Or at least the effects of it.

His eyes were closed so tightly he saw stars behind his eyelids, bursting with each clench of Eridan’s nook, shimmering with each chest-deep whimper the troll gave. He couldn’t kiss Eridan but he made a valiant effort to attend his face and neck with his lips and tongue. He worked the flat of his tongue along the broad, flushed membrane of Eridan’s earfin and had to gasp when Eridan’s whole body tightened up beneath him. “Oh you like that,” He panted, “You really do, don’t you?” He did it again, along a different part and began to learn the texture, the feeling of the fin.

Then he, carefully as he could, bit down on the top of the earfin, where the bone was thickest and met the base of the fin itself. He gave a soft growl, because the motion warranted it, and tugged lightly. Eridan, muffled by the rag in his mouth, screamed.

The troll in his arms writhed, bucked and succumbed. Dave, with his body stretched out over Eridan’s, felt the sucking breath and the shuddering and the way the motion traveled through his skin and muscles and bones until his nook was tight on Dave’s cock and he felt the release of some thick, cold fluid from deeper in Eridan’s nook. He thrust against Eridan a few more times, relishing the tightness, loving the way Eridan’s body stayed tense and aching for the longest of seconds, before he was pushed over the edge himself.

He wasn’t shaking when he came back from that, only lying against Eridan, panting. He felt hot and cold at the same time, like something was stealing that warmth from him. Dave blinked and realized that Eridan was lying down on the floor, instead of propped up. His head was turned away, his breath even and deep. His eyes closed tightly.

Dave gently reached up and pulled the gag from his mouth. The cloth was shredded. Eridan spat out pieces of it but didn’t otherwise move.

It came to him slowly, the realization that his softening cock was still mostly inside of Eridan, that his jaw ached from leaving those bites along his shoulders, that there was enough purple on the both of them to make anyone think they’d been playing in paint. He pushed himself up with arms that wanted to give out and reached for the flashlight. He kept it pointed down, low so that no one would see him, or Eridan, or the way he knelt between Eridan’s legs still. He found the bindings on Eridan’s wrists and tugged at them, pulling them loose with fingers that felt more like noodles than anything else.

Eridan still didn’t move when his hands were free. Dave, uncertain, rubbed Eridan’s wrists. “Are you… do you feel better?”

Eridan pulled his hands out of Dave’s loose grip and put his arms around himself. Dave felt his heart clench in his chest. He shifted, crawling out from between Eridan’s legs to straddle his hips. He ran his fingers up Eridan’s neck and cupped his cheek. “How do you feel?”

Eridan grunted.

“Come on. I didn’t fuck you senseless. I’m not _that_ good.” Dave said with a little jaunty smirk. He let his fingers dance along the edge of Eridan’s earfin and watched the way it flicked under his touch.

“I’m not sick anymore,” Eridan hissed, turning his head. The glazed look was gone. His eyes were so narrow Dave could barely see the color of them. “You don’t have to keep touching me. I’m not a danger anymore.”

“Yeah, but when you were I wasn’t able to do _this.”_ Dave murmured and leaned in. He pressed his lips to Eridan’s. His tongue swept across the bottom lip, asking permission, but when he didn’t get it he just continued the kiss anyway. When he drew back, Eridan’s eyes were wide again.

“Why,” Eridan whispered, “Why would you want to do that?”

“It felt right. You don’t deserve to only get fucked when it’s either that or become a murderer. And I wanted to. Doesn’t mean I have to understand why I want to. My brain just likes to decide shit on its own sometimes.” Dave shrugged a shoulder. He looked away from Eridan’s face then and down to his chest where his other hand rested. There was a scar near one thumb and his fingers were over a faint tattoo of a cluster of black bird silhouettes flying over white crested waves. “I had no idea you looked like this under your clothes. It doesn’t seem like something you would do to yourself. Scarred up and marked with ink… I didn’t know white ink would show so well on troll skin.”

He felt the curious, cool touch of Eridan’s fingers on his own shoulder then and looked up. Eridan was looking at the bronze gears he had on his own skin. “It must be hard to see them in the dark like this…”

“So, show them to me in the light sometime,” Dave murmured, leaning down again. He got close enough to kiss but held back. “I mean, if you want to.”

“You said humans don’t do quadrants,” Eridan’s voice was like a breath against Dave’s lips. “What the fuck is this then?”

“Something else.” Dave replied.

They hung in silence for a moment, breathing each other’s air before Eridan tipped his chin up and closed the distance. His lips, cool and dry, opened to a warmer, wet mouth. Dave cut his tongue on those teeth before he got more careful but didn’t pull back.

Languid and unlike the all-encompassing fucking from before, they kissed. Dave let his fingers trail over earfins and collarbone while Eridan’s hand seemed content to hold onto the back of Dave’s neck, fingers in the short hair there, and kiss. Eventually Dave drew back to take deeper breaths and to admit, softly, that he felt sticky and cold.

Eridan nodded absently at him, eyes half open and mouth open with his breathing. “I’m… exhausted.”

Dave did what he could to clean them up, though the only cloth available was clothing. He used Eridan’s torn shirt to wipe up what he could and eventually muttered about waiting until daylight to take care of the rest. The flashlight had dimmed substantially, its battery failing now, but it was enough for him to tug free Eridan’s sleeping bag.

Burrowed into their respective cocoons of warmth, Dave turned to look at Eridan before going to sleep. Eridan’s eyes were closed but his hand wriggled out of the bag and stretched out across the space between them. Dave snorted and shuffled close. He took Eridan’s hand, pulled it into his bag to keep warm with him, and closed his eyes to sleep.

* * *

Dawn came and with it, Eridan anticipated an ending to things.

Sunlight did that, he thought as he stared at the light coming in through the side of the tent, casting him in the faint blue glow of the cloth. Sunlight burned things, like eyesight and whispered words and hands that ached with intent. Sunlight revealed things, like irrationality and foolish decisions and the depth of certain wounds.

His hand was still twisted, encased in warmth, away from him. He lay with it that way, not pulling it away, waiting for the end that would come from outside of himself. Eridan hated to end things. Whenever he did, there was more blood spilt than if someone else had done it.

The human, Dave, stirred awake and Eridan resisted the urge to immediately turn towards him. He took a deep breath and tried not to tense up. It hardly helped.

Dave’s hand flexed in his own. He felt the human sit up, heard the chatter of his teeth shivering together. “Fuck it’s cold.” Eridan looked up. He met Dave’s gaze. “Oh. You’re awake. Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m always cold.” Eridan replied.

Dave’s fingers tightened on Eridan’s own. He hadn’t let go of his hand. Why hadn’t he let go of his hand? He seemed more content to rub at Eridan’s fingers in an absentminded way. “The scarf makes more sense now. Come on. We should hurry up and clean up before anyone else comes poking around.”

Eridan can’t help it. His hand tightens, his claws dig into Dave’s skin. He sits up from his bed, hissing, “I was _right_. You just want to hide it away like-”

He stopped at Dave’s stare. Dave who hadn’t pulled his hand away, wasn’t yanking on it to make Eridan let go. He withstood the pain. “Do you _want_ everyone to know we fucked last night? I’d like to tell my friends, sure, but everyone else? Why should they know about it? We still have to figure this shit out ourselves, don’t we?”

The wordless sound Eridan heard next makes him blink in astonishment. Dave blinked at him too. Had he just… was that him who made that sound? That whine in the back of his throat like… Eridan touched his throat in disbelief and looked away. He really hadn’t believed Dave, not after he’d slept, not after he’d woken up. There was no reason to. That didn’t fit the pattern Eridan was used to.

“Let’s clean up,” he whispered instead, unable to put into words how badly he had needed the distinction that Dave provided. Eridan wasn’t a terrible secret to be hidden away, but the two of them and… whatever it was that formed between them didn’t need to be studied under prying eyes. They deserved their privacy. He stopped his claws from digging into Dave’s skin and gave an apologetic pat with his other hand. “Thank you.”

Dave nodded, a little bit of a smile on his lips and his eyes were glittering as he tugged his shades back into place. “Sure thing, babe.”

Eridan answered that smile with a little one of his own. Not quadrants. But something else. He could manage that.


End file.
